A former dental office employee in Bothell, Washington, will serve nine months of home confinement for insurance-related felony theft charges.
Josie Morey has pleaded guilty to one count each of first-degree theft and second-degree theft, both felonies, in a state court in Washington. She will serve nine months of electronic home monitoring and pay $600 in court fees. She also was ordered to have no contact with her victims for 10 years. A restitution hearing will occur at a later date.
Morey filed false insurance claims and illegally collected unemployment insurance while she worked for a Bothell dentist from May 2011 until November 2013. The investigation by Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler's Criminal Investigations Unit ("CIU") identified $4,400 in client payments that Morey misappropriated and $1,700 in charges to Washington Dental Service on behalf of one patient for treatments the dentist did not provide, which depleted the patient's yearly benefit amount.
In addition, the state Employment Security Department found that Morey fraudulently collected more than $32,000 in unemployment benefits for 59 weeks while she was working at the dental clinic.
Commissioner Kreidler's CIU investigated this case with the Bothell Police Department and Employment Security fraud investigators. They worked with the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office to prosecute the case.